Infamously Infamous

I have been working on Infamous!, and have made some serious progress. The game seems to work better right now, it has actual art, and it allows for some crazy crap to happen. I am still not really sure about the balance of the game, but with more playtesting, I hope that that will come.

Here are some sample cards:

Here are some sample card backs:

I am currently using a combination of art that I purchased from that recent humble bundle and my own work. I figure any publisher will replace all of the art, so I don't have to spend much effort on it - just enough to attract playtesters.

Here are notes from my last playtest:

  • Helper-bot is too powerful for a 2 cost card.
  • Remove bonus for most minions of each type: +3 for most minions overall is fine.
  • 2+infamy minions as a minion cap is a good balance point.
  • Consider a max on carapace fertilizer?
  • Is Transmutation too powerful?
  • remove auto-crammer's discard ability. Possible replacements?
    • a card that allows you to reveal cards from your hand to act as helpers?
    • a card that increases the value of tokens on it?
  • the (impulse/wutai mountain)-like ability boosting can wait for an expansion. Other expansion ideas:
    • cards that when tinkered care about the base card type?
    • cards that care about cards that are tinkered onto them?
    • cards that consume tokens to fuel themselves?
      • a card that consumes tokens to add tokens to other cards!
  • Add in the infinite combo -> 5 points and stop the combo rule
  • We forgot to discard cards that became materials to the morgue! Test again with that rule in place for real.

During this last playtest, one player had a gadget that allowed him to draw two cards at the end of each turn, and then he went bonkers by using a transmuted copy of the Iron Midas to reduce the cost of his gadgets, and then the carapace fertilizer to build tons of times in one mega-turn. He comboed the revivification matrix and the gravity engine to make the cards that he was building much bigger than usual. He ended up getting about 30 points in one turn, which was a pretty crazy turn.

Too bad for him that the other player had built the Iron Midas earlier in the game, and had 7 completed gadgets and had already just completed the helper bot (to gain 16 points above his already excellent score), and the Dr. Doom Device (to ensure that once he got ahead he could end the game at any time). The game ended with the slow and steady player winning 46 to 44.

It was a super rewarding game.

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